PONY EXPRESS • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Pony express

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/pˈoʊnˌi ɪksprˈɛs/ Listen

Pony express

noun

Express mail carried by relays of riders on horseback; especially between Missouri and California around 1860.

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Etymology of 'Pony express'

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"Pony express" Quotes from Famous Books

... as once those hard, dare-devil riders rode who carried across the land the mail-bag of the Pony Express, overtook Doc Tripp and changed to a fresh horse at the end of the first fifteen miles. He swung out of his saddle, stretched his long legs, remarked lightly that it was a real fine day, and was gone again upon a fresh mount with twenty-five miles between him and Rocky ...

— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory

... there is no authority reposed anywhere to compel the owner of a railroad to take and carry the United States mails. The only alternative provided by act of Congress in case of refusal is for the Postmaster-General to send mail forward by pony express. This is but an illustration of ill-fitting legislation, reasonable and proper at the time of its enactment, but long since outgrown and ...

— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... The only transportation to California was by stage-coach, a sixty days' journey, or else across Panama, or else round the Horn, a choice of three evils. But to establish quicker communication, even though transportation might lag, the men of St. Joseph organized the Pony Express, to cover the great wild distance by riders on horseback, in ten or twelve days. Relay stations for the horses and men were set up at appropriate points all along the way, and a postboy dashed off from St. Joseph every twenty-four hours, on arrival of the ...

— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson

... following spring, all danger was over and "Pike's Peak" was loyal. The Southerners gradually left to join the rebel army. We got news from the East in six days, by telegraph to Omaha, the overland mail coach to Julesburg, near the forks of the Platte, and by pony express from there to Denver. St. Louis papers were eight days old and Chicago papers ten days ...

— A Gold Hunter's Experience • Chalkley J. Hambleton